Intuition Martyr

[Bluemagex2517]

Though popular in extended Martyr of the Sands doesn't see a lot of extended play. If your meta is packed with Zoo and Gobos he should be insane. Here is my list:

Lands
2 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
1 [REW] Wasteland
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
5 [5E] Plains (2)
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [ON] Secluded Steppe
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [ZEN] Emeria, the Sky Ruin
4 [A] Savannah
4 [A] Tundra

Creatures
3 [ALA] Ranger of Eos
1 [M10] Baneslayer Angel
1 [9E] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [CS] Martyr of Sands
4 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
1 [SC] Eternal Dragon
1 [SHM] Elvish Hexhunter
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

Spells
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
2 [LG] Moat
3 [9E] Wrath of God
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [DIS] Proclamation of Rebirth

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [SHM] Vexing Shusher

I'll go through a card by card breakdown and then a match-up by match-up breakdown.

1cc creature Engine:

4 Martyr of Sands - Flagship of the deck. You gain a lot of life to match the blistering pace of this format.
1 Elvish Hexhunter - Answers Counterblance, Survival, ect. ect.
1 Weathered Wayfarer - This deck is rather mana hungry, this guy will allow you to start making all of your land drops and get the non-basics.

Tutors:
3 Ranger of Eos - enables the 1cc Creature Engine
3 Intuition - Gets Life from the Loam + (cycle lands, Emeria, wasteland, 1cc creatures)

Reanimation Engine:

1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin - Slow, but resilient because of Life from the Loam.
2 Proclamation of Rebirth - extra Emerias hurt each other. Because you need to have 7 plains out for them to work you don't want to drop 2. Getting 2 creatures back per turn is unnecessary. However, I want at least 3 slots to start recurring martyr, ect. These are more vulnerable to discard.
Eternal Witness - Helps with Intuition packages and with Emeria online you can start wrathing every turn. Recurring Kitchen Finks or Swords/path can get you out of jams.

Loam Engine:
Life from the Loam: Makes this land hungry deck LD resilient. Allows Intuition to tutor entire combo (LFTL, Emeria, Martyr).
2 Secluded Steppe - Nice way to gain card advantage without having to run more blue spells.
1 Wasteland - Can hinder some opponents, stops Dark Depths.

Removal Suit:
4 Path - 4 Swords: You're a nearly monowhite control deck and these are the best spot removal spells around.
3 Wrath: Still the best mass removal around. Having 3 allows you to intuition for all 3 when necessary.

Win Conditions:
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Eternal Dragon

- I know I want two big flying creatures as my win condition. I'm not sure which ones though. BSA is better than pretty much every other angel because it only costs 5 and is huge. Eternal Dragon can cycle, and comes back on its own. This might not be optimal, but at least they are harder to extirpate.

Other cards:
4 Kitchen Finks - Pretty iffy. He survives wrath and
2 Moat - Adds a huge price tag to the deck, but it's nice to have a card that says: If this resolves I win the game, against merfolk. (at least if it's game 1). If you can't afford them I suggest either +1 Wrath +1 Day of Judgment, Or + 2 ghostly prison.


Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt: I play dredge, so I know how for real it is. When you run intuition you should always have 3 yard removal cards to tutor.
4 [TSP] Krosan Grip - you can eventually beat Counterbalance without it, but it's not fun or pretty.
4 Chalice of the Void - Answers some decks, idk if it should be cut for something else.
4 Vexing Shusher - Makes blue match-ups much easier/faster.

Zoo, goyf sligh, burn, gobos: You gain like 150 life a game... how are they supposed to beat that? Watch out for waste against gobos. Keep in mind zoo has pride mage for moat.

Merfolk: If they drop standstill do some math and figure out if you can make it to 7 mana before they can kill you. If they can't, you can get a martyr lock going so they'll have to break their own standstill. If they can try to wait till they have 7 in hand and intuition at the end of their turn. As mentioned above, Moat is almost always a win in game 1. So run them out of countermagic and drop moat. Make sure you can answer Sower of Temptation before you get BSA or Eternal dragon going. Watch out for waste.

Canadian Thresh: See Merfolk -Standstill.

Counterblance: Wow this is boring. Answer their threats, don't let hexhunter get hit with swords. Eventually you should win if you play well/ don't make mistakes. Try to win game 1, because game 2 is going to time. Meh, game 1 might go to time. :cry:

ANT: Better hope you can gain 15 on turn 2 with martyr. Worst Match-Up.

Dredge: hope they are slow. Remember martyr can kill bridges. If you can land Moat it's usually a win game one. If they have 2 creatures on the board swords/path 1.

Survival: Wrath, Moat, kill survival. If they land Progenitus either start gaining more than 10 a turn, or wrath/moat.

Dragon Stompy: Get a basic plains and use swords/exile to answer magus/ big dumb dorks.

I'll get to sbing plans and more MU strategies when I have more testing.

If you hate aggro, and don't mind going to time a lot, this might be the deck for you.

[Bluemagex2517]

Yep, misspelled intuition in the title *feels like a moron*

[Jander78]

Yep, misspelled intuition in the title *feels like a moron*

Fixed

[Pastorofmuppets]

Ankh of Mishra. When you're gaining all of that life, who cares?

[Waikiki]

I wonder why you even need intuition and life from the loam and not stay mono white and add a crucible or petrified field (tutor up with your wayfarer)

[The_Red_Panda]

Cut the big fliers for Elspeth. Really Really.

This looks pretty close to a U/W/x Landstill build with a life-gain engine built in. Given that that's the case, there's a pretty good argument to be made for losing your wasteland and a couple of fetches for factories, and putting in some standstills.

The chalice in the board seems really out-of-place. When are you ever going to bring it in, and what are you setting it to? 1 seems horrid, 2 seems fairly bad, (loam, costing 4 mana), and anything above that is way to expensive to be setting before the game's already been decided.

Also, I'm not convinced Wayfarer is going to be netting you that many lands, as you'll generally want to have more in play than your opponent.

Looks like a semi-fun concept though, if you hate yourself and enjoy going to time regularly.

[hungryLIKEALION]

If you're already running G you could consider playing sylvan library. Turning Martyr from a life gain engine to a life+CA engine is really sexy...

[Frozen_Fire]

Hmm. I play Martyr Control in Extended, but in legacy there are some more things to take in consideration:
-We have decks that win consistently turn one/two
-We have more nonbasic hate (this slows down/nullifies emeria)
-We have stronger black decks (more discard effects)
-A portion of the field runs chalice of the void MD
-Lifegain provided by martyr becomes less relevant since the tempo gain is lower.

If I were going to play a white-based deck, I'd rather play Quinn. Otherwise, if you feel good enough to try that list, do it, but I'm quite skeptical. A little suggestion, Even in extended, Expetidion Map is better than Wayfrayer. Also, you should choose better finishers. Decree of Justice comes to my mind.

Greetings,
Frozen_Fire :)

[Anusien]

I think you need a better plan to hit 6 mana than just trying to make a land drop on each turn.

[Darkenslight]

Where's the Tithes and Test of Endurance? Where's the Felidar Soverign?

I'd strongly recommend going UW and dropping the G completely. LftL can be replaced by Cruicible. Drop the singletons and modify the fetches to just Mesa and Rainforest. Drop the Savannahs for 3 Basic Islands and one more Plains.

KGrip can be replaced with Wipe Away and Vexing Shusher can be replaced with something like Defense Grid, maybe. Is there any place for Puresight Merrow, and Augury Adept, I wonder?

[Vacrix]

i like your concept alot; however, i think you devoted way too much MD space to beating aggro. STP and path to exile? really? seems unnecessary to me. if you are in blue already, why not run mystical tutor? then you can run fewer WOG's, and maybe even an MD krosan grip. also, that would enable you to play mystical tutor in response to discard. brainstorm should be an auto-include too. otherwise, you can do nothing but fold to discard. also, there is a WOG variant now that does the exact same thing. might as well run 1 of those instead of a WOG for the sake of avoiding extirpate.


Cut the big fliers for Elspeth. Really Really.

hmm... its harder to protect. if you are running so many land, and you can cut path to exile/swords for mystical tutor, then why not run decree of justice? you are going to be dropping so many lands that it seems pretty obvious to run it.

personally i like path to exile over swords just because it combos nicely with weathered wayfarer. of course you could run a 2/2 split to avoid extirpate but thats up to you.

also, why chalice in the board? i know it was mentioned in a previous post, but its completely unnecessary. if you are boarding that in against combo, then clearly you should be running stifle over it. stifle negates wasteland, the one thing you really dont want to see. i see it being far more useful over all than chalice, especially since the only number you really want to resolve it at is 0, which most combo can play around (i play enough storm combo to know this)

also, you have no countermagic. if you are beating aggro so badly, and have a decent control matchup, why prepare for the combo matchup at all with chalice? those 4 slots aren't going to stop combo. i suggest you improve your discard matchups instead.

and as far as weathered wayfarer is concerned, only 1 wasteland? wayfarer is a BEAST with wasteland. run 4. ive seen wayfarer completely lock control out of the game by just fetching wastelands every turn, or bust a fetch, resp. look for wasteland, waste. its just ridiculous and i dont see why you would play any fewer than 4. it would massively improve your control matchup.


This looks pretty close to a U/W/x Landstill build with a life-gain engine built in. Given that that's the case, there's a pretty good argument to be made for losing your wasteland and a couple of fetches for factories, and putting in some standstills.

agreed. standstill/factory is the perfect fit for a deck that wants to win once it hits 7 mana. however, keep in mind that dropping wasteland removes your power to get trixie with wayfarer. so consider which matchups standstill will improve? combo? you have no countermagic or distruption that really affects them. control? i think control will be able to beast through that matchup. especially if they get crucible/waste down and lock you out of your combo. against aggro control? depends on the matchup. i think wasteland/wayfarer tricks might be suiting of a specific meta. obviously it blows against mono colors, so against gobs, merfolk and elves its going to be a dead strat.

[Bluemagex2517]

i like your concept alot; however, i think you devoted way too much MD space to beating aggro. STP and path to exile? really? seems unnecessary to me. if you are in blue already, why not run mystical tutor? then you can run fewer WOG's, and maybe even an MD krosan grip. also, that would enable you to play mystical tutor in response to discard. brainstorm should be an auto-include too. otherwise, you can do nothing but fold to discard. also, there is a WOG variant now that does the exact same thing. might as well run 1 of those instead of a WOG for the sake of avoiding extirpate.



hmm... its harder to protect. if you are running so many land, and you can cut path to exile/swords for mystical tutor, then why not run decree of justice? you are going to be dropping so many lands that it seems pretty obvious to run it.

personally i like path to exile over swords just because it combos nicely with weathered wayfarer. of course you could run a 2/2 split to avoid extirpate but thats up to you.

also, why chalice in the board? i know it was mentioned in a previous post, but its completely unnecessary. if you are boarding that in against combo, then clearly you should be running stifle over it. stifle negates wasteland, the one thing you really dont want to see. i see it being far more useful over all than chalice, especially since the only number you really want to resolve it at is 0, which most combo can play around (i play enough storm combo to know this)

also, you have no countermagic. if you are beating aggro so badly, and have a decent control matchup, why prepare for the combo matchup at all with chalice? those 4 slots aren't going to stop combo. i suggest you improve your discard matchups instead.

and as far as weathered wayfarer is concerned, only 1 wasteland? wayfarer is a BEAST with wasteland. run 4. ive seen wayfarer completely lock control out of the game by just fetching wastelands every turn, or bust a fetch, resp. look for wasteland, waste. its just ridiculous and i dont see why you would play any fewer than 4. it would massively improve your control matchup.



agreed. standstill/factory is the perfect fit for a deck that wants to win once it hits 7 mana. however, keep in mind that dropping wasteland removes your power to get trixie with wayfarer. so consider which matchups standstill will improve? combo? you have no countermagic or distruption that really affects them. control? i think control will be able to beast through that matchup. especially if they get crucible/waste down and lock you out of your combo. against aggro control? depends on the matchup. i think wasteland/wayfarer tricks might be suiting of a specific meta. obviously it blows against mono colors, so against gobs, merfolk and elves its going to be a dead strat.

I agree with the fact that chalice should go. Combo is pretty much a no win, so why bother. I'm not sure I want more wasteland, as it lowers the power of emeria. I use wayfarer as a way to make sure I make my mid game land drops, she usually gets fetches or plains.

I am rather weak to discard. Idk what I'm protecting with mystical though. Swords, only delays them, wrath too. Martyr is naturally weak to discard. I don't think 4 slots will help that much.

Control decks aren't as much of a problem as you would think. Sure Emeria sucks, but proclamation is rather good. Plus you can loam waste if you want to.

I was thinking of Knight of the Reliquary to replace Kitchen Finks. It allows the deck to kill faster, and can fetch out waste or Emeria.